1702-12993

Pennsylvania: Support to Put People First! PA (PPF-PA) to act as a lead convener in the Philadelphia community, and other regions across Pennsylvania, as part of the Grassroots Engagement Strategy. PPF-PA serves as a vehicle to enable diverse individuals and families who are new to civic engagement to join together and make their voices more powerful and impactful collectively. Through leveraging their “Healthcare is a Human Right campaign,” PPF-PA is partnering with multiple stakeholders to work towards greater equity, participation, accountability of systems, and transparency, and will continue integrating oral health improvement into their efforts. Throughout the grant Year 2, PPF-PA continued to develop the leadership skills of community members who are directly impacted by the lack of dental care; created opportunities for these members to take action to expose the healthcare crisis and to engage with local officials; and provided a conduit for members to connect to other stakeholders through keeping people up to date and sharing upcoming events and opportunities. Oral Health 2020 investment of $100,000 will primarily be used to advocate for the restoration of the adult dental benefit in Medicaid. As part of this work, PPF-PA will help leverage the statewide oral health network to help community members get access to key decision-makers and advocates. This will involve empowering directly impacted people to speak for themselves. All actions described in the proposal work plan for the Year 3 work were organized around the systems change framework (policy, financing, care and community). This proposal aligns with the Oral Health 2020 Goal 6 of improving the public perception of the value of oral health to overall health and the target that oral health is increasingly included in health dialogue and public policy.